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Studying Mario

Updated July 16, 2003 12:01 a.m. ET

Mario Monti has been accused of many things, but one charge that we've never had much time for was that the EU's competition commissioner was deciding merger cases to hurt U.S. companies or help their European competitors.

So although it was billed as a controversial finding, a recent statistical analysis of some 200 decisions that turned up no systemic bias in this regard did not surprise us. According to the Financial Times, the research, conducted by Oxford researchers and the international law firm Allen & Overy,...